Monday, July 04, 2005

Newport ship

Yesterday we went to an open day for the Newport Ship. It is a medieval ship which was found about 3 years ago when they dug up a car park by the river to build a new arts centre. The Council wanted to bury it again - too much trouble and expense to exhibit it, they thought - but there was such a public outcry that they were forced to change their mind. So archeologists came and transferred the timbers to water tanks in a local factory unit. There are over 2000 of them and they have to be individually cleaned and scanned before they can put them back together again and exhibit it - at the current rate of progress it's going to be at least 15 years before that happens!